


More Than he Bargained For

by Shaddyr



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Angst, Dubious Consent, F/M, Mind Games, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2002-11-01
Updated: 2002-11-01
Packaged: 2017-10-08 09:52:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/75456
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaddyr/pseuds/Shaddyr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It never occurred to Spike, when he decided to fight for the the soul, that he might have to deal with more than just regrets about things *he'd* done to others...</p>
            </blockquote>





	More Than he Bargained For

He hadn't counted on this.

There were a lot of things that he'd anticipated. World-class guilt for one. But he'd already decided he'd stake himself before he got all broody like Peaches. He'd expected to remember things long forgotten, things that would contribute to a virtual smorgasbord of regrets.

He'd known going in that he might come out of this more like the pathetic, wanna-be poet he'd once been than the person he'd become. He smiled bitterly at the thought – *not a person – a thing* .

He'd tried to prepare for how he would feel about the many terrible things he'd done in his unlife. It hadn't even occurred to him that being ensouled might affect how he would feel about the things that had been done to *him*.

* * * *

_Buffy drilled him in the stomach. He grinned through the pain._

"Come on, that's it, put it on me. Put it all on me." Her foot lashed out, connected. He grunted. "That's my girl."

"I am not your girl!" She hit him again, hard. He fell backwards, and Buffy was on him in a second, punching him over and over. "You don't ... have a soul! There is nothing good or clean in you. You are dead inside! You can't feel anything real! I could never ... be your girl!" The pummelling continued throughout her diatribe.

Beaten and bloody, his demon visage melted back into his human mask. He didn't lift a finger to stop her, and she continued to rain blows down upon him, anger and desperation warring for dominance on her face. When she finally regained her composure and stopped, her expression shifted to one of horror.

He gazed up at her through pain-fogged eyes. Bleeding cracked lips, and a swollen face cause a noticeable slur in his speech. "You always hurt ... the one you love, pet."

Buffy scrambled off him, staring down at her handiwork, dismayed and silent.

"Buffy?"

She looked away, then with a determined expression, headed toward the mouth of the alley and the police station beyond.

He remained lying there, watching her as she walked by him. He reached out weakly, but she was gone.

"Buffy..."

* * * *

He'd always felt things deeply. Hate, anger, love. When he'd been turned, the only real change had been that the social mores and customs of humanity no longer bound him, leaving him free to act on the buried rage that a proper gentleman had no outlet for. Or so he'd thought. He was discovering how wrong he'd been.

It was agony. When Buffy had died the year before, he'd suffered, been overwhelmed with grief. Since her return and their subsequent involvement, he'd been living an almost daily heartbreak. But he'd taken her insults and fists in stride, accepting that it was part and parcel of loving her. He was, after all, everything she said. A demon. Evil. Soulless. A thing – he certainly wasn't a man. Vampires were things, weren't they?

Driven by guilt/rage/confusion, all he'd known when he'd left Sunnyhell was that Things. Had to. Change. He would become what she needed or die in the process. Perhaps even rub her nose in it a little one day – after he could bear to look at her again. When he could face her after what he'd done.

A harsh bark of laughter escaped him. What he'd done. He certainly felt guilty about it, as he well should. He'd hurt her. The image of her huddled up against the bathtub, tears coursing down her cheeks, a look of betrayal on her face. Oh yes, that was going to haunt him, he'd known it. He'd just been completely unprepared for the other things that might haunt him as well.

* * * *

_"Buffy, stop it!"_

Her hand slid down his body, into his pants, mouth hot on his neck. She pressed up against him, wordless, demanding, eyes mocking his refusal. As though he had no reason - or right – to refuse her.

He tried to push her away, and the look was joined by an equally mocking laugh as she easily tumbled him backwards and straddled him as she had in that alleyway only days earlier. He still had some faint traces of those bruises. He wanted to talk about it. Talk about what had happened on her birthday. Talk about why she kept coming back to him. He writhed beneath her, trying to break free, and she responded by pinning his wrists and grinding her heat into his burgeoning erection.

"Please, Buffy, don't. Can't we jus -" he tried to voice his protests again, but they were swallowed up by her hungry mouth.

As he always did when she came to him like this, he gave in. After all, this was what he wanted. Wasn't it?

* * * *

His new soul was opening up entirely unexpected angles of consideration, and he was seeing things in a new light. It was completely unexpected.

He'd gone to apologize to Buffy that fateful night, and in his drunken haze, misread the situation. Convinced that if he could just touch her, make love to her, that she would finally see she loved him as well, he had ignored her pleas. Caught up in his single-minded pursuit of what he wanted – her acknowledgement of her own feelings - he'd almost committed a reprehensible act. If she hadn't stopped him, he would have raped her

He'd already been reviling himself for his actions. He'd merely expected the soul to increase his guilt. Instead, it had had an unforeseen side effect. Previously, he'd called Buffy on her hypocrisy. He'd pointed out how she'd come to him when she knew full well what he was, but it had been about hurting her as much as she was hurting him. Now, for the first time, he was feeling a sense of violation. Of his body, of his mind – violation of his person-hood.

If he wasn't a person – if he'd really been a nothing, a nobody before the soul, if he truly deserved no respect, no kindness and no love, then what she had done to him was the worst kind of violation. She wouldn't treat even a rabid dog the way she'd treated him. At least she'd put the animal out of its misery.

* * * *

_She stared at him, a strange look in her eyes, then opened her mouth and spoke quiet words that made the bottom fall out of his world._

"Tell me you love me."

Surprise didn't even begin to cover it. "I love you. You know I do." He stared into her eyes, willing her to see the truth of it, to know it in her bones.

She took a few steps towards him. "Tell me you want me."

His eyes widened, his whole attention focused on the woman before him. His voice was a bare whisper. "I *always* want you. In point of fact-"

"Shut up." She moved in as if to kiss him, then pulled him onto the sarcophagus, manoeuvring him to lie on top of her. There was a brief flurry of activity undoing buttons and clasps, and then she stared up into his face, pushed the partially unbuttoned shirt down his shoulders, and used it to pull him to her waiting lips.

* * * *

Even when she had admitted she'd been using him, it hadn't hurt like this. The bloody soul was bringing an excruciating intensity to his feelings about Buffy – and to his pain over what she had done to him.

He'd done much evil in his tenure as a vampire, but there were things that he'd prided himself on being above. Cruel mind games – those were Angelus's specialty after all. Eating children - where was the challenge in that? And forcing an unwilling woman into his bed.

He'd come to the soul wrenching (and, God, how accurate that was) realization that human, ensouled Buffy, Defender of Humanity, the Chosen One, a *real* person - had done two of the three things that he had abhorred even as a demon. To him. Repeatedly.

* * * *

_He woke up to the sensation of warmth and wetness, sleep losing its hold on him as he realized she was on him, over him, engulfing him. His body responded to hers even as he tried to object, attempting to shake of the cobwebs and gather his wits about him._

"Buffy!"

She tossed her head back, lost in sensation as she gyrated sinuously above him.

Felt so good. But he wanted more. "Buffy!"

She leaned over him, her breasts pressing into his chest as she brought her mouth down on his, effectively silencing him. He moaned into the kiss, pleasure mingling with frustration, and resolved to take the matter up with her when they were done. That was, if she didn't run from him before he could say two words.

* * * *

He thought that his heart might shatter with grief.

No, he hadn't expected that at all.

It was far more than he'd bargained for.


End file.
